Having him eat that for dinner was great, but he had already eaten two cheese crackers at lunch. In fact, when I got home he was very excited and told me all about the cheese crackers he ate, and how they tasted kind of like Cheetos. Now you may be wondering what happened at lunch that caused the change. Evidently we were bribing him with the wrong stuff. Deserts, nope. Video games, tempting, but still no. Ginger apparently had an idea to let him pick out a game at the toy store. She the bought it and let him know she bought it, but didn't give it to him. And now he knows that once he tries 7 new things, he'll get the game. Of course, there was evidently some miscommunication about what constitutes seven 'new' things. For dinner he actually asked for five cheese crackers. At first we couldn't figure out why in the world he would want five cheese crackers (maybe he really did like them), but then during dinner he explained to us that once he ate all of those, he would have eaten seven new things (two for lunch and five for dinner, smart kid interpreting the requirements that way, he has a future as a project manager I suspect). I actually felt a little bad bursting his bubble and explaining that he was going to have to try seven different things to get the game. But he seemed okay with that once we explained it to him. He still wasn't motivated enough try a piece of the chicken at dinner though (I should explain that the child eats chicken nuggets with no problem, but any chicken that isn't breaded is basically a problem at this point). Still, it's the small victories that count and the cheese cracker is at least a step in the right direction.
Lastly tonight, I'll put up some pictures of some of the cards Ginger made for her stamping club thing she attended a couple weekends ago. I mentioned back when she attended I would put up pictures, but then forgot about it until now. Better late than never I suppose (depending on who you talk to anyway). The cards on the left are the ones that she made at the stamping party. The ones on the right are the ones she made at home and took to give out to other people.
I did blow ups of the ones she made and took to the party. They actually can be used as bookmarks by pulling out the middle. I did get into a bit of trouble for questioning at one point why the "snowman" had semi exposed boobies. I was later corrected (and I can see it now that it has been pointed out) that those are the snowman's arms. And let's not start in on the psychoanalysis of why I would see boobs on a Snowman. In my defense, there aren't many guys that could pull off that color combination.
7 comments:
Actually, I thought of one more thing on the getting kids to eat thing. We don't reward them with "stuff" for eating. Instead, we use positive reinforcement and not-too-subtle cajoling. Like this:
us: "Oh, Luke, you don't want to eat the salmon?"
Luke: "No"
us: "That's okay, you'll eat it when you're bigger. You're just a little kid now."
And then he may not eat it that time. But we keep on him like that, and eventually, he decides to try it, and he likes it, and then we heap on the praise:
us: "Wow! You're so big now. You're not a little kid anymore; you're such a big kid!!"
And Luke is beaming. He's proud to expand his horizons.
We're going to have to rename this blog to the StatisticallyInsignificantParentalAdvices blog.
By the way, the cards look really professional... very nice.
And I'm wondering why you always let this blog drift back to the topic of boobs. (Not that I'm complaining!)
I am taking notes on all this 'eating' stuff and taking notes for future reference :-)
I will continue the conversation on eating here.
Oh how I wish we did not have to end up bribing Q to eat, but I truly think he needs a big push to do this. (Or it could be me being frustrated after three plus years!) We keep using the "you will grow big and strong" idea, but he truly does not care. And he tends to need a big push to do anything he "thinks" he cannot do anyhow. Which is why we started pushing him to eat new things.
Please note that C will truly eat anything. After we could see Q being such a picky eater, we over compensated with C when she was a baby. She was eating off my plate as soon as she could.
us: "That's okay, you'll eat it when you're bigger. You're just a little kid now."
Believe it or not, we had tried something similar to that also. He doesn't seem to mind being considered a little kid if it means not eating whatever it was he didn't want to eat. In fact, I remember at one point where he would say something like "I'll eat [fill in the blank] when I'm nine." To which I'm thinking that's a long time away to start eating pasta.
Way to go Quinn!!!! It's all about the baby steps.
IMHO any parent that doesn't resort to bribery at some point in their child's life is lying!;) Anytime a parent uses an incentive not related to the desired action it's a bribe.
We're doing something very similar to your game prize with EtE and potty training. He's used the potty numerous times, but just hasn't been interested in months. He's really into helicopters and airplanes right now, and we were at the store and he asked for a new helicopter (they cost less than $2). I told him if he uses the potty he can get a new helicopter. We went home, and he asked to use the potty, and he went. Just needed an incentive. He got his helicopter and was very proud of himself! Now we have a chart, and each time he goes he gets a sticker, and once he gets 5 stickers, he gets a "prize". We'll continue to bump up the number of stickers required to get a prize, but right now this system is working for all of us, and more importantly, EtE is excited and proud of himself for his accomplishment.
Scott, count yourself lucky that positive reinforcement alone works so well for your family, but remember that not ALL children respond the same way.
Don't get me wrong, we DEFINITELY bribe! Just not over food. That particular issue doesn't matter as much to us as getting the darned basement clean. In that department, I yell, holler, stomp my feet, and heck-yeah, bribe!
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